Counting Beans
by hazelmom
Summary: A little reverie between Gibbs, McGee, and two sweet babies.


7

A/N: I don't write much these days, but a person named Sevenacres wrote me a nice note, and I thought about doing this one shot for her. It's nothing fancy. I like exploring the closeness of McGee and Gibbs since Paraguay. I don't know what to think of the weird Caf Pow intervention from a few weeks ago. Maybe, they will follow up on it tomorrow night. I hope you are all well.

Sheila

Counting Beans

The orange walls had deepened into a murky gray in the dimmed light of early morning. The lights automatically brighten after 6:30 a.m. but that wouldn't come for another three hours. At 3:30 a.m. not even the most committed of agents could be found in the squad room. Even Gibbs. If he needed to obsess on a case, he generally did it from his basement. He had to be an example to his agents. He pushed them hard, but there had to be limits.

Limits were what he was thinking about when he walked into the squad room very early on a Monday morning. In the middle of the dimmed room was activity. The big screen was up and active, and his lead agent was pacing back and forth, talking at the screen. McGee had recently set up voice activated computer controls, and while it should've been Gibbs' dream come true, he regarded as a form of witchery. It was just too weird for him. He just kept tapping away at his keys like a normal human being.

McGee wasn't alone. He had two tiny humans strapped to his chest. He was so focused he hadn't registered the ding of the computer. Either that or he was too punchy. Gibbs suspected the latter. One of the babies was fussy, and so, in addition to pacing and dictating to the screen, McGee was bouncing the little ones up and down and patting tiny backs. Gibbs found the hint of a smile tugging at his mouth, but he pushed it down. There was lots about this that wasn't good.

"Let me take the fussy one," Gibbs said as he approached.

"Boss!" McGee jumped back and landed against a desk, teetering for a moment before he regained his balance.

"For the love of Pete, Tim, don't fall with the babies," Gibbs lurched forward and steadied him.

"I didn't hear you," McGee said as he let Gibbs work the straps on Morgan's harness. Gibbs grabbed a blanket a very overstuffed diaper bag and swaddled the little girl. He hitched her up on his shoulder and soothed her with soft whispers.

McGee watched wearily as Gibbs whispered into her sobs. "She's colicky. She sleeps all day, cries all night."

"I got it," Gibbs said as he moved into a darker part of the room.

McGee sank into a chair, lightly rubbing Johnny's head. Gibbs was a rescue, but there would be more. He wondered how long Gibbs knew about these late night visits. Gordon, down at the front desk, had run the night shift for the last 23 years, and he knew that Gordon sat firmly in Gibbs' pocket. He wondered if Gibbs had known to ask or if Gordon had felt the need to mention. He closed his eyes and waited. He had no focus left for work.

"Tim." McGee's eyes fluttered open and his breath quickened. He wondered how much time had passed. Gibbs was standing over him with Morgan sleeping on his shoulder. His eyes dropped to take note of Johnny on his chest and relaxed. All was well.

Gibbs sat down and Tim tensed. Morgan liked constant motion, and he was sure those little blue eyes were going to snap open and that tiny little mouth was going to start singing, but nothing like that happened.

Gibbs' eyes settled on the large coffee cup on the desk. "What's in there?"

McGee sighed. "Not you too. Abby drinks it. It's not an illegal substance. She must've told you."

"Yup."

McGee shook his head.

"You can't work this hard, Tim. Only so many hours in a day."

"It's actually kind of nice to come at this time. Delilah needs the rest. When Morgan starts up, I just pack up the kids, and we come here to work on files."

"And when you go home do you get any sleep before you come back?"

McGee's face reddened. "Did Gordon call?"

Gibbs shifted Morgan so he could look at her face. "Actually, I got a call from your wife."

"Really?"

"She's worried."

McGee shook his head. "I don't know what more I can do. I am trying to make it work on all levels."

Gibbs shook his head. "It was, what, 14, 15 years ago when you were just a pudgy probie out of Norfolk, and I was getting pressure to send you back to the closet they had you working out of. But the network in the squad room here blew and instead, I find you on the floor under a desk trying to rewire the whole thing. I knew then that your goal in life was to the best possible job for whatever cause you served. And I wanted in on that."

Tim smiled. "A lifetime ago."

"Now, you got a wife and twins and you're an agent, and you are still trying to rewire the network, Tim."

"I don't get it."

"Let me try another analogy."

McGee nodded. He was watching Gibbs trace Morgan's tiny face with his fingers; a move he considered to be risky at best. Morgan was a livewire, either bright and smiley or impossible to console. It had been bringing up memories for him of Sarah as a child. Johnny, when awake, observed the world around him intently with the calm of a Buddha.

Gibbs looked up for a moment. "Remember where we were nine months ago."

"Hmmm," McGee said. "Starving to death in the hottest, smelliest cargo hold ever made, waiting for our inevitable execution."

Gibbs nodded. "Good times."

McGee snorted out loud, and Johnny stirred on this chest, green eyes fluttering awake. McGee cradled the boy but wasn't desperate to induce him back to sleep. He seemed to welcome staring into his son's eyes.

"What are you thinking about, Tim?"

McGee smiled at Johnny. "All the promises I made back then. All the dreams. They all came true."

"Mine did too."

McGee looked up. "Really?"

Gibbs smiled. "You think you were the only one waiting for these little miracles? Seeing you happy makes me happy."

"You think I'm squandering it right now."

"Yeah, a little bit. Your anxiety is getting in the way."

Johnny was clutching a finger and cooing. McGee smiled at the tiny boy. "We got damn lucky, Boss."

Gibbs chuckled. "Remember picking up the phone and finding Ellie on the other end? That wasn't planned. We were just thinking a desperate swim to shore and a run through the jungle, hoping to stumble onto help."

"All after surviving on less than 500 calories a day for two months. It was a fool's plan, but it was all we had."

"Forgot to mention our plan to destroy the uranium."

McGee leaned back and held Johnny close so he could touch his face with chubby little hands. "We were desperate. Odds were against us, but we did it. We did it all and we came home in one piece."

"So, what is your thinking now? You survived that so surely, you can survive sleeping only 2-4 hours a night." Gibbs had largely unwrapped Morgan from her blanket and was rubbing her round belly.

McGee shook his head. "Not really capable of that much reasoning right now. I just don't want to disappoint. All of it is precious, and so all of it deserves my best."

Gibbs sighed. "Okay."

"You don't have a rule to drop on me, a pearl of wisdom."

"Spending time together in that place like we did- it does something. I grew to know you over the years, but after Paraguay, I know you like family- a brother or a son- whichever metaphor fits best for you. I know you want me to offer something profound, but you already know the answer. You already know you are getting in your own way."

McGee nodded. "Maybe I think I am strong enough to do it all or maybe I am unwilling to compromise on any of it."

"Let's trade." Gibbs passed him Morgan with the casualness of someone who had no clue of her unearthly powers. McGee reluctantly made the switch and was surprised to find that she stayed asleep.

"She's sensitive, Tim. Stay calm and strong. She can feel it all."

McGee looked at him. "Was Kelly like this?"

"Very much so." It was almost a whisper. Gibbs kept his eyes on the little boy who studied him intently with unflinching eyes. "This one is grounded. He studies the world around him. He's both you and Delilah, but more Delilah maybe."

"Just what I was thinking. Delilah is the most grounded person I know."

"None of us can afford to lose you."

It was such a simple statement and yet McGee felt it like a knife in his gut. At first, he said nothing. He just focused on not worrying about Morgan so much. It made a lot of sense that she was sensitive to his energy. He let her relax against his chest and slowed his breathing. After a few minutes, he looked up. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You didn't even hear me until I was almost on top of you. I should put you out in the field?"

McGee shook his head. "It won't be like that when I am out in the field."

"You're right 'cause I'm not letting you out there until you start sleeping again."

"Boss-"

"It's not a conversation. Half an hour ago, when I came in, I was thinking it was going to be, but then I got my hands on these babies. These two deserve the best and that's you." Gibbs had Johnny's socks off and he was playing with the boy's impossibly plump toes.

"So, what do I stop doing?"

"Nothing," Gibbs said as he marveled at the smile on the little boy's face. "That's your smile, Tim. That's all you."

McGee sighed. "You should see Morgan when she's happy. She lights up a room. So, I should keep doing everything, huh? What's the catch?"

"You're taking care of everyone but you, Tim, and we can't have that. Remember how you counted beans for us back in that hell hole? You took care of both of us. You're working with a helluva lot more beans now, but you're forgetting to count any out for yourself."

McGee sighed deeply, his eyes on Morgan. "Abby wants to stay on the couch a couple of nights a week and do night duty."

"So, say yes."

He shook his head. "I wanted to make it all work without help."

"Tim, your wife is differently abled. Don't look at me funny. I read a thing and that's what they say now. It's a better way to look at things, but she still has some limitations. You both have high stress, demanding, and dangerous careers. If Abby wants to sleep on your couch twice a week, let her. Don't be an idiot. I'm taking Wednesday nights."

"You have your own lives." McGee patted Morgan's bottom and winced. He reached for the diaper bag.

"We are family, Tim. We want time with these babies. We want you to sleep so you can do all the remarkable things that you do. In a few months, these babies will sleep through the night and it will all be just a tiny bit easier, but right now, it's too much."

Morgan stirred as Tim expertly slid a diaper pad under her, pulled off a wet diaper, fastened on a new one, and got her pajamas pulled up. The whole operation seemed to take less than a minute.

Gibbs nodded. "That's some good work."

"Think you can do that at 3 a.m. and get her back to sleep?" Morgan settled back onto his shoulder. Her eyes opened for a moment, and then her lids grew heavy again and closed.

"Try me."

McGee grinned. "Wait until she's mad as a wet hen and you have no idea why."

"I can't wait," said Gibbs sighing deeply.

The End


End file.
